Haven 5 Blood Magic BOOK (10 page)

He reached up and took out his axe. Slowly, a grim smile spread over his face. He thought that some of his companions were speaking, possibly even to him, but he did not heed them. They could follow or not, as they liked. He cared little. In truth, it felt good to have the axe in his hand again. It had been so long. Too long.

He followed the hidden channel to where it opened and broadened in the forest, scooped out no doubt by a hundred flippered hands. He marched, chuckling to himself. These foolish creatures attempted to hide from him, from the sharp eye of justice, but it wasn’t to be their day. Today, the clear light of justice would triumph!

A thousand steps farther into the thickening woods led him to the merling village. He thought to hear behind him others of his party, struggling with thickets of thorns that had left a dozen bleeding scratches on his exposed skin. He paid the scratches no heed. The tiny wounds did not hold him back for a second. The hooked, finger-like growths could not make him pause in his quest. The whipping thorns barely made him blink to protect his wide, staring eyes.

The merlings were thus taken by surprise. Their lookout, a slovenly fellow who napped along the banks of the hidden channel he was charged with maintaining, gave a single croak of dismay when Brand’s boots appeared in front of his bulbous eyes.

Brand only gave him time enough to glance upward. The bulging eyes popped and took in the axe, the wild stare, the floating nimbus of hair, the bleeding red lines that traced the madman’s face like smears of paint. Then Brand swept the lookout’s head from his lumpy shoulders and that was the end of it.

The village, in the manner of all merling villages, was half-submerged in a shallow artificial pond of still water. A few fat merlings, lazy with the easy start of a spring day, swam amongst their raised hummock-like lodges of mud and sticks.

Brand punted the lookout’s head into the midst of the pond, where it splashed down with a tinkling explosion of water. Two dozen pairs of bulbous eyes surfaced and stared at the sinking head, and at the madman who stood at the far edge of their pond.

From there, things went from bad to worse for the merlings. The warriors, a party of perhaps ten, formed into a bunch and approached, hurling bolas and flinging stones. Brand deflected these off-handedly, waiting for them to get close. When they did, he commanded Ambros to flash and it did so, eagerly.

The merling warparty, ragged to begin with, fell back in shock, eyes blinded, wet skins burnt. Brand struck among them and they fell. The survivors splashed, croaking, into their pond and huddled inside their lodges.

Brand gave chase. He strode to the nearest of the lodges and lifted the axe, ready to slash it open.

A hand grasped his wrist from behind.

It was a close thing. His cousin had dared too much. Brand whirled, and for a moment he didn’t see Corbin. Instead, he saw the biggest, squattest merling of all time. A champion of their foul race, a bullfrog amongst peepers.

Brand’s hand, still held by the wrist, dropped the axe and his other hand snatched it from the air before it could splash down into the pond. The massive merling that had dared grab his wrist was croaking something at him, he didn’t know what, but had no doubt the words were foul curses.

He drew back Ambros with his off hand, and was gratified to see the shock and fear grow on the huge merling’s face. He would behead this monster too, and make an ugly trophy of it.

It was Telyn’s voice that broke through his fever. The axe, uplifted, never came down. He froze there, blinking, and came to his senses.

He saw them all now, standing there staring at him with wide eyes.

Corbin looked very pale, as if he were indeed a giant merling about to be gigged. Telyn was there as well, her pretty mouth circled in a desperate ‘O’. Whatever she had shouted, he didn’t recall the words. Tomkin had his Blue Jewel was out. He stood unhelpfully atop the slumped body of a merling warrior. His stance indicated he had at least
considered
calling the Rainbow.

Would he have really marched the Rainbow against me?
Brand asked himself.

“I… I’m sorry,” said Brand, lowering the axe. He put it away, feeling stunned. The instant it had returned in his pack, his face and hands were on fire from a dozen stinging scratches. His legs ached from their swift march through the trees, and his face burned with embarrassment. “I’ve not let myself go like that for a long time,” he said.

“Was it fun?” asked Tomkin, putting away the Blue Jewel. He eyed Brand with a mix of mocking leer and curiosity.

Brand ignored him.

 “That was a bad one, Brand,” said Telyn, coming to him and dabbing at his cuts.

“Are the merlings… Are they guilty? Did anyone see the girl’s body?” asked Brand. He had a sudden, haunted feeling. Had he slain more innocents? If anyone could call a merling innocent… But they were, he told himself firmly, unless proven otherwise.

Corbin looked around thoughtfully at the corpses. “I don’t know, Brand. I hope we aren’t just a pack of vicious marauders. I—I killed one as well. I thought they must have done something. You seemed so sure.”

Brand looked at his cousin, and felt further shame. Corbin’s sword was out, it was steeped in brackish blood. His fine blue cloak, the sign of his office in the Riverton Constabulary and of which Brand knew he was quite proud, was now stained and tattered. Brand splashed around in widening circles. The girl’s body had to be here somewhere.

A few bulbous eyes gazed at him fearfully from the far side of the pond. Others crept inside their lodges and amongst the trees.
Was the slaughter over?
He could see the question in their alien eyes.

“Nothing?” demanded Brand. “No one sees anything? These creatures were just minding their own business when I charged into their homes and chopped them to bits?”

Tomkin hooted then, and they sloshed over to him. He pointed down at one of the bodies. A cord wrapped around its midsection. It was from a River Folk boat. As people who spent much of their lives on the waters, they knew the look, feel and thickness of it.

“This is Haven rope. It’s from the abandoned boat, most likely,” said Corbin, examining Tomkin’s find.

“Proof?” asked Brand.

 “It’s not proof,” said Corbin, still examining the rope. “But merlings are all guilty of something, Brand. Don’t feel too bad about giving them a beating. Perhaps you’ve saved the life of other locals who they will now fear to attack.”

“We can’t be sure they did anything, Brand,” said Telyn hurriedly.

He felt a pang of guilt, hearing the worry in her voice. Did she honestly think he might go berserk again and finish off the rest of the village? “Don’t worry, I’m not about to draw the axe again on such thin evidence. Most likely, it is from the boat. But that doesn’t mean they drowned the girl. Tomkin, can you talk to these folk?”

Tomkin shrugged. “After a fashion.”

“I say the rest of us withdraw. We’ll wait for Tomkin to treat with them. He didn’t slay any them, and he’s not human. Maybe they can tell us where the girl went.”

“Or mayhaps they can form a quick lie, hoping to save themselves,” chuckled Tomkin. He put up a thin-boned hand patting at the air to stop their complaints. “Worry not, I’ll do it. I just don’t think much of our chances. These frogs will say anything after a good trouncing. Anything that will send us far from their village.”

They did as Brand suggested, and after a half-hour of nursing their hurts in the woods and brooding, Tomkin returned to them.

“They are unhappy, and claim innocence.”

“Big surprise,” said Corbin, huffing. “I could have given you that answer on the instant.” Like Jak, Corbin never believed merlings were innocent in any sense, Brand knew. They had killed too many of the River Folk over the years to be forgiven by most humans.

Brand’s own parents had died that way, with the skulking, cold, wet hands of merlings at their throats. He wondered if, deep down, that hate for them had boiled up and helped the axe get full control of his actions. He didn’t like to think he was capable of a bloodlusting fury without good cause, but the evidence was clear.

“There’s more,” said Tomkin, bounding up onto the lowest-hanging branch of a huge beech tree. Brand eyed him, wondering what knavery he was about to attempt. The Wee Folk often made themselves difficult to reach right before they said something particularly annoying.

“Let’s have it,” snapped Brand.

“They said it’s a good thing you brought that breastplate, elsewise they would have had you!” hooted Tomkin.

As was often the case, Brand found the frivolity of the Fae to be particularly irritating when discussing death, treachery or disaster. Nothing seemed to amuse them more than a particularly painful tragedy. Brand scowled at the manling, who had his hands on his hips. He recalled Myrrdin had struck just such a pose when confronting him last year.

“Have you anything useful to report, Tomkin?”

“Report, is it? Am I a servant of the River Folk, then? Do I require your leave to speak freely, your
lordship
?”

Brand shook his head. Tomkin clearly had something else to tell them and was dragging it out for maximum irritation. Brand had often wondered if the entire race had a death wish.

“We’re friends now. Allies. Stop with the mockery. There will be no trading of boons for information, nor any of that nonsense.”

It was Tomkin’s turn to sulk. He leaned against the tree trunk and examined his dirty fingers introspectively. He huffed. “Very well, but your attitude is quite dampening, boy. The merlings grunted something about the ropes having been cut when they found the boat. And something about footprints in the mud, leading into the Deepwood. They remarked we must have been blind, drunk or both to not have seen them.”

Brand glared at him. “Did you see them, Tomkin?”

The manling gave a tiny shrug. He made a gesture that suggested flippancy. “Possibly.”

“And why didn’t you point out the trail?” demanded Corbin, interjecting. He was angry, and Brand didn’t blame him. But Corbin still didn’t understand the Wee Folk fully. Their minds simply didn’t operate in the same manner as human beings did. One thing Brand had learned for certain: to them, absolutely anything might be taken as a joke. Even a horrible death, or a terrible wrong. Such events were sweet comedy to them.

“Don’t you realize these creatures here died for nothing? Because of you?” Corbin continued, taking a step toward the beech. Immediately, Brand saw Tomkin’s wisdom in having retreated up there before making his report.

Tomkin put his hands on his knees. His grin split his face ever more widely as he gazed down into Corbin’s red face.

Brand heard a snapping sound behind him, then a twang as an arrow was released. He could not raise his hands fast enough to settle everyone down.

It was too late anyway, as Telyn had loosed her bow at Tomkin.

Tomkin was more than ready for the attempt, however, and did a quick bound into the air. After a full backward summersault, he landed again on the same spot. The arrow was a dull one, Telyn had snapped its hunting head off, which had been the sound Brand had heard. But it might have given him a nasty knock if it had caught him. Wobbling in flight, it shot off into the woods behind him.

Tomkin whooped. Lavatis flashed on his chest. The humans sighed and calmed down, all they had accomplished was to give the manling the thrill he had sought. Brand wondered if the Fae did things like this purely out of boredom. Having such long lifespans, perhaps things became dull. Performing idle tricks and delivering sharp mockery were the only tools they had to spark up their lives.

Brand raised his hands higher for peace. “No more arrows, Telyn. You’ve broken the head off of one of your best, that is enough. And Corbin, stop letting him bait you. I forgot that this is your first trip with Tomkin in close proximity. He can be irritating. One must let his smaller crimes go unremarked.”

“Getting us to kill half a village—even of merlings—is no small crime,” Corbin said.

“Nevertheless, fussing over this will only goad him to new heights.”

Corbin gave up and stomped away from the beech.

“To reforge the group, we must have an agreement, Tomkin,” said Brand. “You must swear to help, not hinder, in our quest.”

“What?” demanded Tomkin, scandalized. “You ask for a vow to be taken? What compensation do you offer me?”

“Nothing,” said Brand quickly and firmly. “Your reward will consist of being part of this journey. Otherwise, you will have to go home and annoy wood nymphs with your cold-handed gropings.”

Tomkin chuckled at that. “Unfair!”

“On the contrary, my offer is extremely fair. Now, if you don’t mind, lead us to these tracks and let us all follow them.”

Tomkin assumed the attitude of one being greatly burdened. He grumbled and complained about their lack of humor, but in the end did as they required. He made he vow with ill grace. The others accepted it, and together the group went back to the abandoned boat.

By nightfall, they had set off into the woods on a trail of muddy tracks that led into the Deepwood. Before they had gone far, they were forced to stop and camp.

Corbin in particular complained that Tomkin’s foolishness had endangered the girl needlessly. Each passing hour the likelihood of finding her alive diminished.